Questions I have been asked now that I am homeschooling is who or how will my dc get a report card and advance by grade each year. I really don't know how to answer that question because I don't know. Do you grade your childrens work and make a report card just like the public school does. If my son is in 7th grade this year does he automatically go to 8th grade next year and so on. What if I want him to go to High School in the future is the school just going to take my word that they are in a certain grade. I don't see any postings on this matter thats why I decided to ask.

That depends on the school. Some schools might have your dc take one or more placement tests; others might just take your word for it, or if that's not enough, accept a portfolio of work as equivalence. If you're thinking of putting your dc back into public high school, my advice is to contact the school now and find out what their entrance procedure is. Get it in writing. Incidently, the reason there aren't many posts on this subject is very few people go from homeschool to public high school - it's a lot more common to just wait a year or two and start with community college courses.

Short version: The only way to tell for sure is to contact the school.

I'm not sure if you're thinking DC will go back to the public school at some point or not. If that's the case, I would definately go with what Theodore said. If you're thinking you are going to homeschooling him through his school career, I want to ask you why you consider this a necessity. Lots of homeschoolers don't do report cards or even grades, for that matter. I don't do grades or report card for my 1st grader and we don't advance to the next grade. We school year round and we just keep plugging on through our work. We work on stuff until DC has it mastered and we move on. For some things that may be at Kindergarten level and at other things that could be at 2nd grade level. He's really spread out across 3 grade levels. It's an ok thing and it's very typical of homeschoolers. He and I tell people he's in 1st grade, but that's strictly based on his age since I have to provide that in order to sign him up for community ed classes (i.e. a science class for a 2nd grader means the child should be 7-8 years old - not a 6 year old working at a 2nd grade level in science).

There's a lot of beauracratic nonsense that happens in the public school system that we don't have to deal with as homeschoolers - unless the state makes it legally required. Report cards are often one of those things. I don't worry about them and won't be since in my state you only have to do quarterly report cards if you are a homeschooling parent without a bachelor degree. Unfortunately, people have a hard time wrapping their head around how different homeschooling is. We're not tied down by a lot of things and our days are typically very different from your average public school family.

Good luck!

To be idle is a short road to death and to be diligent is a way of life; foolish people are idle, wise people are diligent.

So the grade depends on the age of the child right because there is no report cards in home school, right? The only reason that i'm asking this is because family members ask me how do I know if they have passed a grade. I'm thinking about high school so that they can get a diploma so they can attend college or when they apply for a job in the future. How are they going to get a diploma if they dont go to high school. I am a bit confused about the way this works. Please make it a little more clear for me.

High school is simple - there are graduation standards for each state, and it's easy to find out what prereqs you need for entrance to any specific college. So there's no confusion there, just cover the material and AP / CLEP / DSST as much of it as possible.

Grade school is both more and less complicated - more complicated in that standards vary all over the place and are much more difficult to lock down, and less complicated in that nobody's going to bother to check up on your child's grade level unless he's going back into the public school system, in which case he'll probably be tested anyway and you can get his grade level from that.

Bottom line, don't worry much about grade levels. Grade school is just preparation for high school, and you know what high school is going to cover, so you know what level you need to get up in each subject by x age. If you really want a concrete grade level, several of the major curriculum publishers offer placement tests, and your state and/or third-party test providers may offer similar services. Testing is useful for identifying weak areas.

Hello, Just thought I'd share my own experience. I think as time passes and homeschooling becomes more accepted, things like GPA and class rank don't matter so much to colleges. I wrote "N/A" in numerous places on my college applications! In my experience, colleges care much more about what subjects you've studied and your extracurricular activities and test scores than about having grades. I didn't have grades for at least half of the subjects on my home high school "transcript" and none of the colleges I applied to seemed to mind.

I think it is true, however, that colleges rely heavily on SAT/ACT scores for homeschoolers, so if your child is someone who happens not to be a good test-taker, it may be a good idea to keep grades. Also, I know of people who have taken the GED after graduating from homeschooling in order to get a job requiring a "diploma."

the grade depends on the age of the child right because there is no report cards in home school, right? ...family members ask me how do I know if they have passed a grade. ...How are they going to get a diploma if they dont go to high school

I make all these decisions myself for my kids.

For instance, I started my kids doing pre-K curriculum when they were 2, 3 or 4 depending on the child and what else our family was doing at the time. As they got older, they moved on to the curriculum for each next higher grade when they got done with the previous stuff. Sometimes it took 3 months, 7 months, a year, or 15 months.

We don't do report cards.

When I was first starting, my dad asked how I would know if my son was actually learning anything. I asked my 6-y-o a bunch of questions about what he'd been taught in first grade, and wrote down my questions and his answers. Grandpa was satisfied and didn't ask again.

It's a common figure of speech in the US to say "ya gotta have a high school diploma to get a job" or "to get into college" but in point of fact it's not true. None of the colleges I applied to ever asked to see my high school diploma and I was accepted by all 5 of them.

My oldest will be finishing 12th grade next month and he got very high scores on the ACT.

I made him a transcript based on a template from the HSLDA website. We gave him A's in almost every subject. Even though I just printed the transcript on regular paper, our auto insurer accepted it for the "good-grades discount" without even a watermark or anything.

Right now I'm in the process of deciding whether to make him a diploma and present it to him or not. We did buy graduation announcements and mail them out to a few friends and relatives. We're having a couple of parties for him, but no cap and gown. Each family gets to pick and choose whatever they want to do like public school and what things to do without.

Thing is, schools are so lousy these days that a high school diploma doesn't necessarily mean you even know how to read and write, never mind have a firm grasp of math, history, science, etc. So a diploma is just a piece of paper - it's how you did in individual subjects that matters. Same goes for class rankings and GPA, it's easy to have an inflated ranking if nobody in your class actually studied the material, and GPA's are often wildly inflated so that schools (or the teachers in them) can make themselves look better. Extracurriculars and leadership roles probably mean a lot more to colleges.

Ramona: Which colleges did you apply to, and what did you send them? I'm a little skeptical that a good college would accept even a homeschooler based on word alone, they generally want test scores or a portfolio of work.

I was talking about myself, 25 years ago, applying to colleges after the standard 13 years of public school. My point was that they didn't ask for a diploma. They wanted my transcript--which is different--and standardized college entrance exam scores.

As for homeschoolers, I think sending in test scores and a home-made transcript meets the requirements for most colleges/univs nowadays in the US. They want some idea of what courses have been studied (and maybe grades). They're not going to look up every high school by name to see whether or not it's accredited.

Ok, silly newbie question. I keep seeing test scores mentioned. How do you go about getting the testing done for the colleges? I know in public schools they come right there and the students take the tests, but where do homeschoolers get them done? And I also see mentioned that many high school homeschoolers take college courses. At what age is it typical that a college will allow students to take courses? And don't they seem out of place being so young compared to the others in their classes then? Thanks

You can have your tests done at any official testing center, which generally means any school, community college, college, military base, etc. You just contact the testing center, make sure they can fit you in, then fill out a proctor form or whatever other paperwork is required and send it in to the test supplier.

Depending on the community college, you can theoretically start to take college-level courses as early as age 10. One of my sisters will be taking courses at age 14, which is older than 10 but still pretty young.

How do you go about getting the testing done for the colleges? ...where do homeschoolers get them done? ...At what age is it typical that a college will allow students to take courses? And don't they seem out of place being so young compared to the others in their classes then?

I would not start by trying to find a local testing center and ask them when they can fit my DC in. We always go to the website for the test supplier and find out from them when and where their test is being offered in our area. Eg., DD took the ACT in February. We went to the ACT website last summer and found that the test was offered at a university near us on a Saturday in Feb that we were free.

The community college here actively tries to recruit homeschooled high school-age students. They have slightly different requirements for anyone under 16, but there are a few of those younger kids in some of the classes, so they're not totally out of place.

AndAll asked:

do all of you have your dc take a state test every year?

I have tried to save my kids from the agony of standardized tests all their lives. In Maryland, homeschoolers were allowed the option to sign up for the tests and go take them at the public schools with everyone there. We did not do that. In Colorado, homeschoolers are required to do some sort of evaluation in the odd-numbered grades from 3rd through age 15. We do not do standardized tests as it seems most homeschoolers in the state do. We take the less-popular option of having a qualified person evaluate the kids. The person who we get to do it asks that our kids prepare portfolios of work for her to look at. It's pretty painless.